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The Perpetual Journey: Jonathan Edwards' "Personal Narrative" And Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Pamela A. Masden

Masters Theses

Scholarly readers seem to have avoided a comparison of the writings of Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) and Benjamin Franklin (1706-90). Although they were born three years apart, they are rarely represented in anthologies as having been contemporaries, primarily because Edwards was a Puritan preacher and Franklin was an "Enlightenment" politician and inventor. However, when we disregard these critical constraints and assumptions, we find that as writers and thinkers, they have a great deal in common.

In my thesis, I have examined the autobiographies of these contemporary works: Edwards' "Personal Narrative" (c. 1739-42) and Franklin's Autobiography (1771-88). The theoretical approaches of Jane …

A Study Of Baudelaire's Symbols Of The Feminine In Les Fleurs Du Mal, M. Allison Harris

Masters Theses

Using French and American feminist theory, I analyze Charles Baudelaire's symbols in Les Fleurs du Mal in an attempt to come to terms with symbolic representations of the female that are at once traditional and transgressive.

By examining the images of solids (statues, jewels, metals), lesbians and woman's hair which appear frequently in Baudelaire's text, I reveal Baudelaire's desire to eliminate a woman's generative power and her association with the procreative cycle of nature. His desire for a preoedipal union with the maternal female becomes evident in his early poems and his poems on the subject of a woman's hair. …

Killer Trees And Homicidal Grass: The Anthropomorphic Landscape In The American Prose Narrative Of The Vietnam War, Timothy F. Poremba

Masters Theses

Reading the landscape of Vietnam (the climate, the jungle, the topography) as an anthropomorphic character in the American prose narrative of the war provides a unique insight into the inner landscapes of the men who fought there and now write about it. William V. Spanos writes that the urge to name--to anthropomorphize--is man's method for dealing with the existential nothingness of being. Zohreh T. Sullivan, in discussing the landscape of Joseph Conrad, perceives landscape as a projection of the author's own psychic turmoil. Furthermore, Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space recognizes the imaginative value that man places on space, …

The Rhetoric Of Documentation: Two Approaches, Walt Wisnewski

Masters Theses

In an attempt to clarify how a beginner who has not yet mastered a software program is to learn to use word processing programs, this thesis examines two examples, WordPerfect and W.W. Norton's TEXTRA from the standpoint of their documentation. Software developers have adopted conflicting rhetorical strategies in their documentation: some have sought clear instruction via a rule-based rhetoric with a reliance on jargon-free standard English, and others have pursued an inferential rhetoric. These two strategies parallel two models in modern communications theory: a decoding model and an inferential model. WordPerfect seems to follow a decoding (rule-based) approach and TEXTRA …

Applying The Matching Law In A Sheltered Workshop, Kristin Elizabeth Skousgard

Masters Theses

This study assessed the validity of the matching law in an applied setting. It manipulated extraneous reinforcement and measured the rate of rocking in a 24-year-old developmentally disabled man. The resulting data were compared to that predicted by the matching law.

The results were important in three ways: (1) extraneous reinforcement systematically affected rocking in an applied setting in the manner predicted by the matching law, (2) a clinically undesirable behavior decreased in frequency, and (3) this decrease occurred in the absence of direct intervention on the target behavior. Thus, to a slight degree, scientific, practical and humanitarian goals were …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of Teaching Nonverbal Sensitivity To Students In An Occupational Therapy Curriculum, Darla Kathleen Schurmeier

Masters Theses

The effectiveness of teaching nonverbal communication skills to undergraduate students in an occupational therapy curriculum at Western Michigan University was explored by testing students just entering the program and students leaving the campus for their fieldwork experiences. A control group was made up of undergraduate students from curricula that did not purposely teach sensitivity to nonverbal cues. The 50 subjects were tested using the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS; Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979). Comparisons were made between PONS scores and the subject's area of study, length of time in the program, gender and age. Results showed that …

Differences In Values And Goals Of Occupational Therapy Students, Margaret A. Danka

Masters Theses

This study compared professional values and goals of three levels of occupational therapy students: (1) seniors in baccalaureate programs (n = 337), (2) students in professional master's programs (n = 95), and (3) students in post-professional master's programs (n = 62). Demographic characteristics and factors influencing career choice were also examined.

Significant differences were found among the three student groups for three professional goals: (1) contributing to theory, (2) doing research, and (3) educating occupational therapy students, and four professional values: (1) intellectual stimulation, (2) exciting life, (3) comfortable life, and (4) helpfulness. The demographic differences among the three student …

Generalization Of Promise-Do Correspondence Training With Respect To The Individual To Whom The Promise Is Made, Robert J. Latka

Masters Theses

This study used 3 subjects of normal (non-impaired) intelligence, 1 female and 2 males, between the ages of 10 and 13 years to study generalization of promise-do correspondence training effects. In a replicated AE design, contingent monetary reinforcers were used to establish promise-do correspondence in playing nonpreferred computer games. This study demonstrated that the effects of correspondence training procedures could be generalized to an alternative listener or individual to whom the promise was made. Generalization was less evident when there was no listener present. This study also provided some evidence that effects of promise-do correspondence training may not generalize to …

An Examination Of The Irrelevance Of The Term Neoconservative As Used In American Ideological Debates, Mark C. Stanczak

Masters Theses

This study compared, by analysis of their publications, various people who are considered to be part of the neoconservative movement in the United States. A definition was developed, and a sample of neoconservatives was examined to see if they adhered to the definition. The examination centered around these people's individual views, as published, on economics and the Welfare State; the scope of government in a society; the Cold War and its effect on community; religion; and stability, the state and social justice.

The analysis of their publications leads to the conclusion that there is no cohesive movement that can be …

The Effects Of Problem-Solving Skills Training With Chronic Schizophrenic Patients, Asiah Mayang

Masters Theses

Problem-solving skills were taught to aggressive and frequently secluded chronic schizophrenic inpatients of a psychiatric hospital. A pre-intervention/post-intervention experimental-control group design was utilized. Eighteen patients were randomly assigned to three groups: six were assigned to the “treatment group” and received problem-solving skills training involving instructions, modeling, feedback, role-playing and social reinforcement; six were assigned to the “interaction” group, involving social interactions with the trainer only; and six were assigned to the “control” group, involving no treatment or interaction with the trainer. Improved problem-solving skills on both familiar and novel video-taped skits were observed for the treatment group, but not for …

Effect Of Therapist-Initiated Versus Self-Initiated Vestibular Stimulation On Vocalization In Children With Autism, Carol L. Maddox

Masters Theses

Therapist-initiated vestibular stimulation was compared to self-initiated stimulation to determine their relative effects on vocalization in children with autism. Vocalizations produced during table-top activities were also compared to those produced during vestibular stimulation. Two children with autism participated in the study. Vestibular stimulation was provided by a hammock swing. All vocalizations were recorded during a total of thirteen 15-minute test sessions.

Results indicated that in this study: (a) There was no significant difference in quantity of vocalizations produced during self-initiated versus therapist-initiated vestibular stimulation, and (b) there was a significant increase in vocalizations during vestibular stimulation as compared to during …

How Work Experience Affects Personnel Selection, Donna T. Klein

Masters Theses

The literature concerning how work experience affects personnel selection for recent college graduates is reviewed and found to be unimpressive. This present study was designed to analyze employers' perceptions of work experience when considering recent college graduates for employment. A survey consisting of three resumes was reviewed by 56 small businesses (employing 100 or fewer people). The three resumes differed with respect to one of the part-time jobs: an internship, work related to field of study, or non-related work experience. The results showed that an internship was consistently rated better at the 0.05 level over related/nonintern and non-related work experiences. …

The Effect Of Organization Type On Job Satisfaction: Private And Public Sector Employees In Saudi Arabia, Saeid Al-Hajri

Masters Theses

This study was designed to explore job satisfaction facets, similarities, differences, and associations among 324 public and private sector employees in Saudi Arabia. Results indicated that subjects from the private sector were satisfied with eight job satisfaction factors (responsibility, recognition and relationship with peers and subordinates, working conditions, opportunity for advancement, personal development and opportunity to make own decision, time demands and requirements of the job, organizational policies and personal recognition, social status, and security and salary) and dissatisfied with one factor (supervisory techniques), while subjects from the public sector were satisfied with four job satisfaction factors (responsibility, recognition and …

Improving Active Treatment Through Performance Management, Carman E. Stark

Masters Theses

The primary purpose of this project was to evaluate a performance management program using a goal setting and feedback system implemented by unit supervisors in a large psychiatric hospital. The focus of the research study was to improve active treatment for mental health patients by increasing levels of staff-patient interaction. Behaviors o f self-recording by staff and instructions and goal setting by the unit supervisor were targeted. Feedback was provided by the unit supervisor in the form of publicly posted graphs indicating percent of completed assigned activities. The four phases used in the data summary include: (1) baseline, (2) goal …

Of Berry Pickers, Shanty Boys, And The Jack Pine Bird: Patterns Of Settlement And Subsistence In Nineteenth Century Oscoda County, Rose Lockwood Moore

Masters Theses

The provisions of the Homestead Act of 1863 (U.S. Congress 1862a) required a settlement pattern of dispersed single families on small tracts of land, which, in turn, affected the subsistence strategies available to the homesteaders. The interaction of federal land legislation with the ecosystem of southern Oscoda County resulted in marked spatial and temporal differences between the tracts that were homesteaded as opposed to those acquired for their timber. A sample population of quarter sections was analyzed in terms of the physical and biotic environments, date of entry, and use. The analysis confirmed that the timber lands were located on …

Ctran: Transforming Scientific Fortran Programs To Unix Based Computing Environments, Qi Chen

Masters Theses

FORTRAN is one of the most popular scientific programming languages. The efficiency, rich libraries, and popularity of FORTRAN support its continued use as a programming language for scientific computing in the near future. However, in current multiprocessor UNIX environments, C is often better supported. The desire to use existing FORTRAN subroutines within such a C environment leads to several options. In this thesis, we introduce a "modern" scientific programming language called CTRAN for this purpose.

We begin with a brief review of the history of scientific programming languages. An introduction of CTRAN is given in Chapter HI. In Chapter IV, …

A Comparison Of The Effectiveness Of Verbal Vs. Nonverbal Cue-Controlled Relaxation In Reducing Test Anxiety, Marilyn J. Christensen

Masters Theses

This study compared the effectiveness of verbal vs. nonverbal cue-controlled relaxation in reducing test anxiety. Twenty-four subjects participated. Subjects received training in progressive muscle relaxation with one treatment group using a verbal cue and one treatment group using a nonverbal cue. The control group was offered relaxation training at the completion of the study. The Suinn Test Anxiety Behavior Scale (STABS) (Suinn, 1969) was administered at pre- and post-training in addition to a comparison of the subjects' quiz scores before and after relaxation training was completed.

The findings from this study indicated thats (a) the groups did not differ; however, …

The Last World Emperor And The Angelic Pope: Eschatological Figures As Representative Of The Medieval Struggle Of “Sacerdotium" And “Imperium”, Christopher Joseph Beiting

Masters Theses

In adopting the Christian faith, medieval people also obtained a tradition within Christianity, that of esehatology. Because of this tradition, there was a receptiveness among some for prophetic visions of the future, visions of widely varied nature. Two very popular themes running through this visionary tradition involved two eschatological figures, the Last World Emperor and the Angelic Pope, whose advent would right all wrongs and transform medieval society. This thesis will examine elements of medieval political theory as they developed out of contemporary events. It will also trace the growth and development of the figures of the Last World Emperor …

Research And Theory On The Housing And Care Of Laboratory Pigeons And Rats, Dylan David Schmorrow

Masters Theses

This study was an experimental analysis of: (a) housing preference of laboratory pigeons and, (b) the effects of housing on laboratory rat health. Pigeon preference between containment cages and fly cages was determined on the basis of exit time from the containment cage to the fly cage. Rat health was determined by the departmental veterinarian. The rats were exposed to traditional and alternative methods of housing.

The findings from this study indicate that (a) on the basis of pigeons' preferences concerning size, it may be more appropriate to house pigeons in fly cages; and (b) alternative methods of care and …

A Comparison Of Outcome Reinforcement Contingencies And Process Reinforcement Contingencies Using Concurrent Training With The Severely Mentally Impaired, Nancy Lonsberry

Masters Theses

This study compared the effectiveness of Outcome and Process reinforcement contingencies using concurrent training to teach severely mentally impaired students to perform component tasks. Each student was trained to assemble a four-piece apparatus using either the Outcome contingency or the Process contingency. The Outcome method was defined as a contingency where the final outcome of a component task has been achieved and a reinforcer is delivered contingent upon that outcome. The Process method was defined as a contingency where reinforcement occurs after the performance of each step in the sequence and when the final outcome of the task has been …

Sql/Ds, Ingres And Indexes: A Comparative Study Of The Use Of Indexes In Two Database Systems, Karen L. Bourn

Masters Theses

Many people in data processing desire to know more about the performance of relational databases. Little information about performance exists in the product or public literature. The purpose of this study is to compare one aspect of the performance of relational databases. The aspect explored is the indexing of tables in a relational database. This paper compares the use of indexing in two relational databases, SQL/DS (Ver. 2, Rel. 1) and INGRES (Rel. 5.0/0.6). Queries were created and executed on tables in both databases, first without an index and then with several different indexes.

The findings in this study show …

The Effects Of Aerobic Conditioning Upon The Resting Metabolic Rate, Marti R. Davis

Masters Theses

This study com pared the metabolic rate following an exercise bout to the resting metabolic rate (RM R) established in pretesting procedures for twelve college age females. The only factor differentiating the groups was length o f the training period (one week, two weeks, four weeks, and five weeks). Training took place on a Bosch cycle ergometer three times a week, for 30 minutes each session, at 70 to 85 percent o f the subjects' heart rate reserve (HRR). Breath analysis was measured on a Beckman Metabolic Cart in both pretesting and post-testing procedures.

The findings indicated that aerobic exercise, …

The Effects Of Repeated Trials On The Cardiovascular Responses To Reading Aloud And Non-Stressful Conversation, George S. Renfrey

Masters Theses

This study assessed changes in blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance, frontalis muscle tension, and breathing rates associated with repeated reading aloud and non-stressful conversation. Four male and 3 female normotensive subjects participated. Sixteen presentations of both verbal tasks, each preceded by a quiet rest period, were made across 8 sessions.

The results indicate that: (a) when compared with resting levels, statistically significant increases in heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, and frontalis muscle tension, and decreases in breathing rates may be produced by reading aloud and non-stressful conversation; (b) systolic blood pressure changes attenuate with repeated trials; and (c) …

Blaise Pascal: From Birth To Rebirth To Apologist, Lew A. Weider

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Three Women Saints In The Thirteenth Century: Mentalities And Roles, Ulrike Strasser

Masters Theses

This case study analyzes the lives of three thirteenth-century female saints, Lutgard of Aywiferes, Margaret of Ypres, and Christina Mirabilis, and places them against the broader theoretical frame of quantitative studies on the subject sainthood. The focus of the study is the pursuit of holiness as well as the perception of holiness. Both, pursuit and perception, serve as the point of departure for a discussion of the mentalities and the social realities which the women’s sainthood reflects.

The findings from this study indicate that female saints display numerous commonalities which can be traced back to the saints’ gender and its …

The Effect Of A Multi-Component Treatment Package On Seat Belt Usage Among Hispanics, Senez Rodriguez-Charbonier

Masters Theses

This study analyzed the impact of a combination of approaches on the frequency of seat belt usage in a large Hispanic community in western Michigan. Subjects in either a treatment or a no-treatment control condition were observed weekly for seat belt usage while arriving at church over several months. They were observed for four weeks prior, during and after an intervention program. Subjects in treatment condition attended weekly group meetings where they viewed seat belt use promotion videos, publicly signed behavioral contracts agreeing to use their seat belts, and received permanent prompts which were installed on the dashboard of their …

"The Pistill Of Swete Susan": Translation And Commentary, Yvonne Daulton Carmicheal

Masters Theses

The Pistill of Swete Susan is an alliterative poem written in the fourteenth century by an unknown English author. Although the original manuscript has been lost, the poem is known to scholars through five extant manuscripts. The various manuscripts have been examined textually, but the poem itself has not been examined critically. The story is based on an Apocryphal text, the History of Susanna. While borrowing heavily from this text, the author has produced a work which is medieval in context and which provides insight into medieval concepts of justice, evil and love. This paper presents a translation and critical …

Kinetics Of The Metal-Exchange Reaction Between Ortho-Phospho-Dl -Serinenickelate(Ii) And Copper(Ii), Jeffrey M. Peterman

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Witches Every Month? The Social Construction Of Premenstrual Syndrome, Suzanne Latham

Masters Theses

Premenstrual syndrome was first reported in 1931, but it was not until the early 1980s that it received widespread attention in the medical literature and the popular press. This thesis is a sociological analysis of how physicians and others were able to define premenstrual problems as an illness. The thesis uses a phenomenological approach, referred to as social constructionism, to explore how medical researchers, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, feminists, various entrepreneurs, and others have attempted to define premenstrual problems to promote their own interests. The analytic method is documentary analysis. The thesis argues that physicians were able to make powerful claims, …

The Effects Of Performance Feedback On The Implementation Of A Statistically-Based Quality Control Program, Gordon O. Henry

Masters Theses

Although various types of performance feedback have been shown to be effective in maintaining work-related behaviors in numerous settings, most of these behaviors have consisted of fairly simple tasks. More specifically, it has not been conclusively shown that such feedback procedures can be used to maintain the worker behaviors required in the implementation o f a statistically-based quality control program. The present study attempted to show that such complex behaviors could be maintained using effective feedback procedures.

The results showed that the subjects (machine operators) performed at a high level in completing required tasks associated with a statistically-based quality control …